Entertaining God - Part 3

When the principal called I mentioned the true fighters that they were in class, being the 2nd and 3rd highest students with the most logged reading minutes. She wonderfully worked this into her talk with them and that they were obviously better than how they were behaving.
When they were allowed to come back to class I let them have it. I don't know where it came from, but I let them have "IT" completely - ALL my belief, ALL my confidence, and ALL my patience. I felt myself pumping out tons of energy as I shared as lovingly and calmly, yet fervently, that real strength is in controlling their tempers, that they were able to do it, and that I demanded it from them for at least this one year.

As I sat back to read them and see how effective this was, I started thinking how Life isn't always pretty or fair, sometimes even ugly and discouraging, but all I knew was that if the evils of life try to take a person from Heaven and into Hell, we should return the favor by taking one headed for certain Hell and into Heaven.

And if life tries to take a kid, I'm taking TWO from hell, giving them LIFE, unstoppable belief in themselves and unstoppable skills. You wait till they're adults before you try and crush them. Hopefully by that time they have become unstoppable or at least have a good enough network of friends and family that can pick them up when they're down and believe in them when they're doubting themselves.

Don't knock a kid down with a sledgehammer. Build them up to be able to be able to withstand the sledgehammers life will hit them with when they're adults (or wrenches if they play dodge ball - from the movie "Dodge Ball").

I start this building up with dry erase markers. I was going over the homework and some weren't paying attention. Respect is big with me, and I told them they were capable of paying attention now and not making me repeat myself later. I wanted to get my point across effectively, so I controlled my growing impatience and diminishing energy with the effectiveness of humor.

I said they better be wearing a bike helmet when they asked me the homework later because I was going to bounce a dry erase marker off their heads; which I did to Chad who volunteered to demonstrate this.

Their laughter pepped me up enough to notice that Miguel was not only reading, but reading a 300 page book. Now this is a kid who according to his parents has never read before, meaning Miguel has literally changed his life in just two weeks by changing his feelings, thoughts, and actions (reading books v. sitting around watching TV all the time).

Don't tell me.....DON'T TELL ME!...that life is mostly bad and unfair. You want more out of it? GIVE MORE TO IT! We just have to quit whining about the difficulties and start WANTING WITH A PASSION!

But how do we do this? ..............

....To Be Continued

Maybe We Shouldn't Try So Hard to Teach

I was going over my 11-year-old son's science lesson with him as we were in the car today. He wasn't really getting it until I stopped trying to teach it to him. I only stopped because as we drove by a construction site filled with mounds of dirt, I began making humorous side comments on what a beautiful dirt building it was.

From the back seat Sofia (5) said the ants must really like it. Then Brosden and I did a Breaking News report of theft at the Mall of Dirt by suspects who appeared to be of a very small stature with six abnormally tiny legs. We all played off each other's comments until no one could get out another without laughing in the middle of it.

After we stopped I began thinking of what we were driving to get in the first place.

Out of the blue, Brosden said, "Oh! This is why scientists do research on lightening."

It seemed that the break in trying to learn actually allowed his brain to see the information I had been trying to get him to learn.

And it was fun. I think I'll keep trying it, allowing the humorous odd comments that come into our heads as we're trying to study to come out :-)

Hilarious Student Bloopers

These are actual student mistakes, unintentional ones, collected by Richard Lederer, a high school English teacher. These make me laugh, and then I remember this is the future of our country, and start to cry :-) (Just kidding. When things are wrong....DO SOMETHING TO MAKE THEM RIGHT.)

Don't sit around and complain, anyone can do that. But, can you go about fixing the problem with a sense of humor? That not only makes the problem more likely to be solved, but much, much more enjoyable. I have had enough near-death experiences to appreciate the opportunity to wake up and say, "I'm still here? Cool!"

This great appreciation for life today has helped me to care less about what people think of me, and more about how I can help people think more of themselves, while I am here. My greatest concern being my children and my students. It's a pretty cool way to live.

The History of The World (from 8th grade through the college level)

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies, and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation.

The pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain. The Egyptians built the pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"

God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his 12 sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

....Well, back to working on my thesis, which is on education. I'll post more when I take another break. Till then, keep laughing, or crying. The US emerged as the world's greatest power just a short 60 years ago after World War II. China is predicted to take our place in as little as 30 years. India might surprise us all and beat them to it (greater democracy and faster growth to compensate for China's greater numbers).

Half our economy comes from the math, science, and engineering fields. After kicking out and keeping out many foreigners contributing to this part of our GDP after 911, it seems as if the real terrorism of that event is just beginning.

And with fewer and fewer American students entering the math and science fields because they don't "get it" and therefore don't find it interesting, it's as if we're throwing away this incredible freedom we've gained via economic prosperity and burying our heads in the sand in ignorance.

Hence, another example of where I just don't see ignorance as being bliss. What you, I and especially our children don't know, harms us all. "A's" in school don't mean a thing if that knowledge cannot be broken down and used to solve open-ended problems.

The world is full of problems, and we need heroes to solve them. The longer I teach the more important I see my job. When someone now asks me what I do for a living, with a Bruce Willis-like smile on my face I say, "I wake up grateful that I'm alive, get on my motorcycle, and go make heroes."

"The gods favor the bold." - Ovid

Make a hero today. Go believe in someone.

- Adam Stuart